string editing on specific request split.upper/.lower

Question

I'm trying to figure out how to edit the below to have a option to convert lower/upper(abc = ABC) I'd like to have a specific input that it knows to convert to the other. so input might be "convert_upper" the program now knows I want to convert the next input "abc" into " 'A', 'B', 'C' "

I've made it pretty far into this endeavor through forums but figuring out how to get the input1 to take a "special request" and do upper/lower based on that input has thrown me for loop Also I was curious how I can create the list. (a 2nd input that confirms the name for the list something like . . . )

example in/output^

input1 = numbers
 numbers = [] 
input2 = 123
numbers = ['1', '2', '3']

current code takes input such as "abc 123 !@#" and outputs a list ['a', 'b', 'c', ' ', '1', '2', '3', ' ', '!', '@', '#']

def split(word):
    return list(input1)
input1 = input("enter Letters, Numbers or Symbols: ")
print(split(input1))

Answer 1

Here's one approach: have a function that you apply to the input, and check for "special requests" to change it:

special_requests = {
    "convert_upper": str.upper,
    "convert_lower": str.lower,
    "vanilla": str
}
func = str

while True:
    i = input("? ")
    if i in special_requests:
        func = special_requests[i]
    else:
        print(func(i))

? abc123
abc123
? convert_upper
? abc123
ABC123

Answer 2

I'm not sure if I got you right but there is a specific method to turn strings into uppercase, which works like

my_upper_string = 'my_string'.upper()
print(my_upper_string) 

So for example:

print('abc'.upper())

will print 'ABC'.

Also, consider not re-defining a built-in python function. split() exists already with strings. I'd recommend to use another name to avoid weird behavior.